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When patients are treated with radioactive iodine, their blood and body fluids such as urine and vomit can contain the radioactive drug. Caregivers should understand the risks of exposure. There are two different types of radiation risks: Thyroid exposure: Having the radioactive iodine absorbed by your thyroid gland. External beam radiation: Getting radiation exposure from the contaminated body fluids, just like you would from an X-ray. Preventing thyroid exposure

​Occupational Health, Vanderbilt Environmental Health and Safety (VEHS) and Vanderbilt Infection Control and Prevention have safeguards in place to help you protect your unborn baby while you work at Vanderbilt.

Formaldehyde is a chemical used in embalming and tissue preservation, as well as in cold sterilization. Acute exposure to formaldehyde may result in pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), central nervous system (CNS) depression, or pneumonitis (inflammation of the lung tissue). Chronic exposure may cause irritation of the skin, mucous membranes or respiratory tract. Repeated exposure to formaldehyde may result in an allergic response. It is also a potential carcinogen. Primary exposure routes are inhalation and skin absorption.

​Compliance with all applicable Vanderbilt Occupational Health medical surveillance and fitness for duty programs is required and compliance status is automatically imported into the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Performance Evaluation System (VPES).

​Chickenpox is normally a fairly mild childhood illness caused by the varicella virus. Humans are the only source of infection for this highly contagious virus. Humans are infected by person to person transmission when virus comes in contact with upper respiratory tract or eyes and by contact with lesion drainage from someone with chickenpox.

If your employee is out more than 3 consecutive days, or plans to be out that long, notify the employee that the condition might qualify for FMLA. The FMLA request and approval process includes medical certification in which the treating provider provides appropriate documentation to HR of the individual's severity of illness. Other than FMLA documentation, please do not request doctor's notes for sick time use. A doctor's note is not required for an employee to use sick time and will not change whether the absence counts as an occurrence.

Occupational Health offers many programs and resources for employees to have the opportunity to complete their annual and new hire TB skin test requirements, including departmental TB Designees and an online submission survey to submit TB reads. Corrected spelling of opportunities.

A parasite called Toxoplasma gondii causes a disease known as toxoplasmosis. Most adults have already had toxoplasmosis; toxoplasmosis shows few or no symptoms 90% of the time. However, pregnant women and individuals with weakened immune systems should be cautious.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an airborne disease which can be detected with skin testing.

Because macaques can carry a virus that is deadly to humans, workers need to know how to reduce their risk of exposure as well as what to do if they get exposed.